During the last couple of years, Hakan Tanriverdi (@hatr) has reported on several large-scale digital espionage and sabotage campaigns, from hacking groups that were later called out by the Department of Justice to companies targeting critical infrastructure in Germany and across Western Europe. In both cases, mistakes in how the attackers set up their infrastructure enabled Hakan’s team to follow their tracks, in some cases right back to their employers. The resulting stories revealed the intersection where covert cyber operations and overt organizational structures meet.

This talk lays out the types of information investigative reporters work with, how they follow and fact-check opaque leads, and how they turn them into portraits of previously unknown actors pulling the strings in cyberspace.

Covering investigations into Turla, Magna Bear and REvil, this talks offers a fascinating insight into how researchers peel back the layers threat actors use to mask their activities.

About the Presenter

Hakan Tanriverdi works as a reporter for Paper Trail Media covering cybersecurity. He mainly focuses on hacking groups and trying to find out who they are working for, on a name- and employer-basis. His investigations tend to be on the more technical side and are assisted by scripts, scrapers and querying databases.

About LABScon 2023

This presentation was featured live at LABScon 2023, an immersive 3-day conference bringing together the world’s top cybersecurity minds, hosted by SentinelOne’s research arm, SentinelLabs.

Keep up with all the latest on LABScon 2024 here.